What Is Orton Gillingham?
Does your child guess at words when reading, struggle to decode and spell words, or read slowly? If so, the Orton Gillingham approach may be your answer.
What is the Orton Gillingham approach?
Orton Gillingham is a structured approach for teaching reading and spelling skills, originally designed for students with dyslexia. It is a systematic, research-based, multi-sensory method designed to help students build their decoding and spelling skills. It involves teaching individual letters and sounds as well as word patterns, while integrating the visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic modalities. Orton Gillingham sessions are typically very structured and each lesson builds upon previously taught lessons.
Orton Gillingham lessons often begin by teaching students single consonant and short vowel sounds and how to blend those sounds together to form words. The lessons then move along to teach students how to read and spell worlds with blends (ex. fl, pl, gl, etc.), consonant digraphs (ex. th, wh, sh, etc.), vowel digraphs (ex. oa, oo, ea, etc.), silent e patterns, multi-syllabic words, prefixes, and suffixes. Each lesson contains multi-sensory elements, including audio-visual card drills, sky writing, and sand writing, along with workbook exercises.
A sample Orton Gillingham lesson might be structured as follows:
1. Review previously taught sounds and word patterns
2. Teach a new sound or word pattern
3. Practice the new sound or word pattern using multi-sensory tools, such as sky writing, sand writing, shaving cream writing, and magnetic tiles
4. Integrate decoding practice
5. Oral reading using passages and stories specific to the sounds and patterns you have taught
6. Oral dictations and spelling practice
Let’s take a look at a more detailed lesson:
Audio-Visual Card Drill: The Orton Gillingham tutor holds up an audio-visual card with the vowel digraph ee on the front and the corresponding key picture (feet) on the back and says to the child: “This is the vowel digraph ee (holds up front of card), like feet (turns card around and shows a picture of feet on the back of the card), it makes the sound /ee/ (turns card back around to show letters). The tutor then says aloud the sequence of letter names/key picture/sound together with the student (i.e. ee, feet, /ee/), and the student repeats the sequence independently three times.
Sky Writing: The Orton Gillingham tutor models forming the letters in the air, while saying the name of each letter and then the sound the vowel digraph makes. The tutor then performs this sky writing together with the child and the child forms the letters in the sky independently three times.
Sand Writing: Similar to sky writing, the tutor models forming the letters, this time in the sand, saying the name of each letter and then the sound the vowel digraph makes. The tutor then performs this sand writing together with the child in a tray filled with sand, and the student forms the letters in the sand independently three times. The same sequence can be performed using shaving cream instead of or in addition to sand.
Workbook Exercises: The child may then complete exercises in an Orton Gillingham workbook, corresponding to the vowel digraph being taught (in this case the /ee/ sound). The child traces letters, identifies pictures that contain the sound, and performs other related exercises, such as filling in words and completing sentences. After this sequence is performed for all of the vowel digraphs in a given section, the tutor emphasizes decoding, or blending sounds containing these vowel digraphs together to form words, using cards and magnetic tiles.
Oral Reading: The child reads word lists, sentences, and stories contained within the Orton Gillingham workbook to reinforce the sounds taught in a given lesson. The child is encouraged to read orally from a controlled reader (book or story) at the end of each session to apply the sounds covered and any previous sounds taught.
The Orton Gillingham method can have a profound impact on a child’s reading and spelling skills, particularly for those who have language-based learning disabilities. However, even children who do not have diagnosed learning disabilities can truly benefit from this instruction. Read more at Ways to Boost Your Child’s Language Development – EBL Coaching.
Frequently Asked Questions About Orton Gillingham
Is Orton Gillingham tutoring the same as phonics tutoring?
Orton Gillingham is a type of phonics instruction, but it is much more structured and sequential, and it integrates multi-sensory tools such as colored sand, magnetic tiles, audio-visual flash cards, and white boards.
How long does are most Orton Gillingham tutoring lessons?
The length of Orton Gillingham tutoring lessons can vary based on the needs, age, and levels of each student. Some students receive one or two one-hour sessions per week, while others receive much more frequent lessons.
Can students with dyslexia benefit from Orton Gillingham tutoring?
Yes! The Orton Gillingham method is ideal for students with dyslexia. The structured, sequential, multi-sensory nature of the lessons make it an ideal approach for helping students with dyslexia build their reading and spelling skills.
EBL Coaching specializes in providing Orton Gillingham tutoring virtually and in person to students in grades peek-12. Contact us today at www.eblcoaching.com to learn more.